Faeries in the Lake

North a bit from where I sit...

North a bit from where I am rooted...

North a bit from where Sol and Luna glide in circles around my center...

...there is a lake.

It is a small lake, surrounded by forest and a few homes. Quietly it glints through the trees, reflecting their Summer greens and hinting at deep, cool secrets below its still surface.

In the daytime, careful eyes can see fish, tiny things, darting about, this way and that, silver and flint shadows in the shallows, swirling away at the smallest disturbance - leaf on the water, ruffling breeze, feet dangling down from an overhang - only to rally again after a few moments.

In the daytime, sunlight dances on the wavelets, leaping from ripple to ripple with a hot copper laugh before coming to rest in the forest where it scorches fallen pine needles and sends up the dusky perfume of the Summer wood.

In the daytime, picnickers find secluded places to spread their blankets, lie back and stare at the ever deepening sky, curl into each other and forget the world for a few hours.

But at night?

Oh, at night, it is a different place.

At night, only the wise and wary dare tread the pathways, the wooded places, the shores. Only the brave venture into the silken, black stillness of the lake.

At night...there be faeries.

Slipping through the woods they come, following where the moonlight leads them - down the gentle slope, out onto the ribbon of sand, and into the welcoming waters. They whisper, giggle, splash, float among the reflected stars, pale skin seeming to collect threads of moonlight and weave them into gowns glimmering with water-droplet jewels.

They brook no interference from mortal kind. Let them catch you watching, and they may disappear, wisps fog, vapour rising from the surface; or they may change, flashing lights, screeching calls, chasing you away, up to the road, where people belong after dusk marks the fay's time in this half-wild place. They could call you into the water, deeper, deeper still, down to where the Selkie lives.

Rarely do they welcome an interloper among them.

Rarely do they help the weary mortal out of her shoes, her skirt, her top, and into the blessed, healing waters.

Rarely do they let her float with them, soaking in the song of the night, hair drifting like water weed, limbs relaxed, drowsing.

Rarely do they bathe her in a distillate of moonlight touched with the remnants of the sun's warmth, pouring it over her, into her, at once invigorating, healing, and calming.

The wise mortal leaves behind nothing more than ripples when she climbs out, into her clothing, and back to the road...ripples, and perhaps a small, shiny gift, a sparkling thanks to the ones who truly belong - the faeries in the lake.